Save Some Blame For Jordan`s Little King

January 15, 1988|By William Safire, (copyright) 1988, New York Times News Service.

WASHINGTON — Who is to blame for the loss of Palestinian Arab lives in the last month? TV footage points a finger at Israeli soldiers; Israel blames PLO agitators; Arab apologists blame the Reagan administration for not advancing the ``peace process.`` Nobody places responsibility for the frustration that led to the rioting where it most belongs: with King Hussein of Jordan.

For decades he has refused direct negotiations with Israel, demanding instead an international conference that would array Arab states and the Soviet Union against his adversary, with the outcome foretold: the absorption of the West Bank of the Jordan River into his East Bank nation.

Hussein`s excuse for refusing to negotiate is that the Arab world has not designated him the spokesman for the Palestinians; he claims to need the cover of an international gathering for direct talks.

Israeli doves, led by Labor`s Shimon Peres, have tried to accommodate the king without encouraging Moscow to impose a pro-Arab solution. Peres suggests an opening ``fig-leaf conference`` to assemble the parties, ostensibly to permit Jordan and Israel to deal directly about the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir sees that fig-leaf plan as a trap; the Russians would surely butt in on the side of the Arabs. He and his Likud prefer to let the divided Moslem world come to Israel to work out the Camp David plan of autonomy without sovereignty.

Three months ago, our secretary of state came up with a daring proposal to break the logjam and to give frustrated Arabs in the disputed territories hope for self-rule. His approach called first for the cooperation of the Israeli prime minister, then the king of Jordan, finally Mikhail Gorbachev.

George Shultz went to Israel and put it to Shamir: Come to the Washington summit in December, meet with Hussein in the presence of Reagan, Gorbachev and Egypt`s President Hosni Mubarak-thereby meeting the king`s demand for an international forum-and then deal directly with Jordan.

That was an agonizing moment for Shamir. He knew the danger of Soviet grandstanding at such a gathering, and was aware of Shultz`s espousal in 1982 of a scheme that would undermine the Camp David solution. Pressure of combined Soviet-American-Egyptian-Jordanian demands would be enormous.

Next stop for Shultz was the London apartment of Hussein. On the evening of Oct. 19, he invited the king to the Washington summit meeting, which would provide a high-intensity ``international conference`` setting. But the next day Hussein said no. His bluff had been called; the king was not about to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians because they were more valuable to his regime angry in their jampacked camps than participating in his nation`s life. And so the world ignored the Palestinian Arabs and their frustration spilled out in violence, abetted by the PLO. Israel has been made to look the villain. Hussein emerges the innocent observer. What do more than a score of Palestinian lives mean to him? To this Arab monarch, the Palestinians are pawns in his game of remaining in power.

When next you see a picture of an Arab youth flinging a rock, think of the man whose interest is served by keeping Palestinians angry in their camps: Hussein, the little king, whose stature shrinks with each passing year.